


Just a Dream

by Lenny9987



Series: Lenny's Imagine Claire and Jamie Prompts [1]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-25 22:50:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6213310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenny9987/pseuds/Lenny9987
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Imagine if Bree heard Claire saying Jamies name in her sleep while they were still living in Boston and confronted her about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Dream

It was dark and Jamie was running. She was only a few steps behind him but when he looked back over his shoulder, she could tell that he wasn’t seeing her. She didn’t know where they were going and neither did he—away from something or towards something? Occasionally he paused to listen for something and look around before deciding where he was headed next. She took those moments to examine his clothes—if they could even be called clothes. They were tattered and filthy and he didn’t appear to have bathed in… far too long. She’d never seen him with a beard like that.

Finally a pale structure could be seen on the horizon. She recognized it for a church and as if he’d heard her thoughts, Jamie began praying aloud as he made his final approach. “Please Lord, please let her be here. Ye blessed me with her once. I ken I’ve done naught worth being blessed a second time, but I’ll do anything to be worthy of her in yer eyes. Please, _mo nighean donn_ , please be here.”

“I _am_ here,” she tried to tell him but he didn’t seem to hear her. She reached out to him but there was something wrong with her sleeve. She saw she was wearing surgical scrubs and became confused. “Jamie,” she called. “Jamie, look at me.”

But he’d pushed the doors open and gone inside. She moved to follow him only to hear Brianna calling, “Mama,” from somewhere… She glanced around in search of her daughter. “Bree?”

The doors slammed shut behind Jamie leaving Claire stranded on the other side. “Jamie!” she cried as she struck the door with her rubber-gloved fists. Panic set in as she heard Brianna calling for her on her side of the door and Jamie’s agonized lamentations that she wasn’t there from the other side. “Jamie! I’m here, Jamie!”

“Mama,” Brianna’s voice was much nearer now and when Claire turned her head, she started to find Brianna’s face just inches from her own. “Mama, are you okay?”

Claire looked at her hands—no surgical gloves and she wasn’t wearing her gown or scrubs either. “Bree?”

“You fell asleep again, didn’t you?” Brianna said with an oddly contemplative expression on her face instead of her usual amusement.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Claire apologized as she sat up. “I meant to meet you at the bus stop but I got home early and must have dozed off while I was waiting.”

Brianna shrugged. “It’s okay. Can I have a snack?” she asked, depositing her book bag and coat on the floor beside the coffee table.

“Of course,” Claire said, rising and stretching before leading the way towards the kitchen. Standing in front of the open cupboard, she found herself rubbing her throat as though it were still hoarse from screaming. She pulled down a box of crackers while Brianna fetched the deli-sliced cheese.

“How was your day at school?” Claire asked as she laid the crackers out on a plate. Brianna folded the slices of cheese to break them into smaller pieces to fit the crackers.

“It was okay,” she said with a shrug and then let their conversation lapse into silence for a few moments.

After swallowing her first cracker, she looked up at her mother. “Who’s… Jamie?”

Claire paused with a piece of cheese halfway to her mouth. “Uh… who, sweetheart?” She put the cheese in her mouth to buy herself some more time.

“When you were sleeping on the couch,” Brianna prodded, “you were saying that name—Jamie. You said my name too so I was curious about who it was.”

Claire’s thumb went habitually to the ring on her right hand. “He’s… someone I knew a long time ago.”

“Before Dad?”

Claire paused and then nodded. “Yes.” _Technically_ it was true.

“What happened to him?”

“In my dream? Let’s see if I can remember,” Claire said, hoping to redirect the conversation.

“No—to the real Jamie.”

“He uh… he died,” Claire answered quietly.

“Oh,” Brianna sounded deflated. “Was it… during the war?”

“He died in battle, yes,” Claire continued with her half-truths.

“Did Dad know him? Do you have a picture?”

Claire popped a cracker in her mouth and traced the lines of Brianna’s face with her eyes—the lines where Brianna’s resemblance to Jamie grew stronger and stronger as she got older and lost the roundness of her baby fat—the lines that would harden but always be a little softer than her father’s.

“No, I don’t have a picture. And Dad never knew him—not personally. Not too fond of hearing about him either.”

“Did you care about him? Is that why you don’t talk about him at all? You’re worried Dad will get jealous,” Brianna concluded.

Claire nodded and felt a thickening in her throat. “I did—I do… care about him. I still love my parents though I hardly knew them. And I miss Uncle Lamb,” Claire explained. “It’s difficult to understand when you’re lucky not to have lost anyone like that. They’re gone… but it doesn’t mean you stop caring or stop thinking about them.”

Brianna nodded and finished up the last of the crackers, collecting the plate and bringing it to the sink. “I promise I won’t tell Daddy you forgot to meet me at the bus stop,” Brianna promised. “But I want to do something special soon—the three of us. Can we go to a movie this weekend?”

“I’ll talk to him when he gets home and we’ll see how our schedules look then,” Claire conceded as Brianna bounded out of the room, her ruddy hair bouncing with each excited step.


End file.
